Afghans riot over abuse of Koran

Page Tools

Kabul: Three people were killed and at least 60 injured when
police clashed with more than 5000 Afghans infuriated by reports
that US soldiers had desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay prison
camp.

"We have two dead in our hospital and 47 wounded. Three of the
people injured are in a serious condition," said Mohammed Ayob,
deputy director of the public health hospital in the eastern city
of Jalalabad.

"The medical university hospital, the second hospital of the
city, has registered one dead and 12 wounded are in hospital. Some
other people with light injuries were cared for and have been
discharged."

Witnesses said police opened fire as the crowd rampaged through
the city yesterday.

Jalalabad police chief Abdul Rehman said: "Initially the
demonstrators were peaceful but then a group joined them and the
mob turned violent."

Western security sources said the governor's office and those of
several aid agencies including UNICEF, the United Nations
International Children's Emergency Fund, were set on fire.

The US State Department said on Tuesday that the Pentagon was
looking into a report in Newsweek magazine that
interrogators at the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, kept
copies of the Koran in toilets to annoy prisoners.

The protesters, which one police source in Jalalabad said
numbered "maybe 10,000", also denounced US-backed President Hamid
Karzai, shouting: "Death to America's allies" and "Death to Karzai"
as well as "Death to Bush". US troops stationed in the city stayed
in their base, witnesses said.

Mr Karzai is due to visit the US this month where he said he
will seek special long-term ties with Washington.

■ The US and other countries have secretly sent scores of
Islamist prisoners to Egypt since the mid-1990s, where they have
likely been tortured, a human rights group said on Tuesday.

Human Rights Watch issued a 53-page report criticising Egypt as
the world's main recipient of prisoners, including suspected
Islamist militants believed to offer useful intelligence for the US
war on terrorism.

The report, titled Black Hole: The Fate of Islamists Rendered
to Egypt, identifies 61 people who have been transferred into
Egyptian custody since 1994.